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tv   ABC World News With Diane Sawyer  ABC  October 30, 2012 6:30pm-7:00pm EDT

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>> this is a personal one-hour edition of "world news" tonight, surviving the storm. dramatic rescues. entire towns loaded into boats. people wading in water to their waists, and the danger is all around. trees falling. >> oh, pie god. >> falling on cars and homes and the people inside. as a big part of new york in darkness. incredible hospital rescues, babies rushed out with nurses manually giving oxygen. and the neighborhood where a lot of firefighters live watching dozens of homes burn to the ground. >> oh, no. oh, no. >> our abc news extreme weather team spread out with compelling stories, stunning new videos as
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"world news" begins. good evening. as we come on the air millions are trying to recover from a devastating blow, superstorm sandy. at this hour rescues are under way, families being plucked from waterlogged homes as the images of sandy's fury pour in. and just watch this tree. there it is. upended from the earth by the soaking rains of this storm. cars in lower manhattan tossed like flotation devices. and as sandy marches west it's whipping up monster waves even on lake michigan. so here is the big picture at this moment, 14 states with cities and towns underwater and in places the water is 8 feet
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deep. and another night of darkness for millions of people, the new york city skyline in shadow. nearly half the island has no power at all. 8 million people in 18 states in the cold and dark tonight. and our extreme weather team is fanned out across the storm zone. abc's alex perez starts us out in little ferry, new jersey, still underwater, rescue is under way right now. alex. >> reporter: well, diane, we've learn president obama will be in new jersey surveying the damage tomorrow. but i want you to take a look around me here. this is what many blocks across little ferry, new jersey, look like tonight completely submerged. you'll see cars that tried to get out but just could not. in this neighborhood alone more than 400 stranded people were rescued today. rescuers made their way through flooded streets today picking up stranded families.
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>> want to come out? >> reporter: and the boats bringing people to where they could be trucked to safety. whole families huddled together in the backs of trucks. >> able to go on the second floor, but power is down. water is almost gone. we have a baby and elderly person. >> baby, baby here. >> reporter: the frantic rescue operation began around midnight last night after sandy's storm surge swamped new jersey. >> happened so fast, within 15 minutes we had 10 feet of water. >> reporter: stunned residents like vincent grabbed whatever they could as the waters rose. >> heartbreak. and then this -- you look and there's nothing. nothing, you can't stop it. >> reporter: new jersey took the brunt of sandy's wrath. the coast especially hit hard. these images from the town of seaside heights. neighborhoods consumed by sand and water. downshore, look at this. the community of sea bright
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before sandy. and sea bright today, just buried. and atlantic city seen from above today, the iconic board of walk now in ruins. the recovery in the garden state just beginning but today saving lives was the top priority. >> she can't walk. but she's in good spirits. she's not injured and we're just waiting to reunite her with her daughter and get her to an evacuation center. >> reporter: first responders also racing to save lives in new york. boats navigating the swamped streets of staten island across the harbor from manhattan. terrified 3-year-old haley rombey lifted in the arms of safety. the rescues continue. sandy may is taken away these people's homes, but she couldn't take away what they cherish the most. as we speak, rescue crews are still working to get people to safety and they're expected to continue working through the night. now, we spoke to one family and
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they told me like many other people here that they thought they were prepared for this storm. that family told me they actually took all of their valuables, all of their belongings moved them about four feet off the ground in their home, but the problem is, they got five feet of water inside their house. the cleanup still continuing and the rescues still continuing here in new jersey. diane? >> aisle lex, we will be back with you and those rescuers later in this one-hour broadcast and we have another note about right now. we want you to look at this. sandy is still on the move heading into the center of the country and this is the big picture. as it continues to pummel americans as far west as chicago, high winds, lake shore flooding, evacuations are under way along lake michigan and wisconsin and waves as high as 22 feet are expected on the lake tomorrow and that's the highest ever recorded there. in northeast ohio, half a foot of rain, winds in cleveland up to 68 miles per hour.
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and last night, we told you about snow in west virginia, well, tonight, there is snow in columbus. 2 1/2 feet and counting. and so many of the deaths and injuries have been caused by falling trees. crashing onto roads and into houses and abc's david kerley brings us the story across the path of the storm. >> reporter: you are about to see a triple teardown of trees. >> oh, my god. oh, my god. >> 16-year-old john taping it from his window in rockland, new york. first a neighbor's tree. >> oh, my god. >> reporter: then a tree snaps in their front yard. >> oh. oh. a car -- oh, my god. >> reporter: if that wasn't enough, one more. >> oh. i got that on film. >> reporter: maybe there is no clearer example of this, how softened soil cannot hold these big trees. watch the earth start to heave.
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matthew in hunting ton, new york, knew there was nothing he could do but watch and tape that big tree going down. dramatic but these trees have also proven deadly. this is north salem, new york, where two boys were playing and watching tv in the family room when this 100-foot oak slammed into the home. a scene repeated too many times across country. these are some of our viewers' pictures, trees falling on houses, trees across roads and pulling down plenty of power lines. in delaware today we watched doug hudson and his crew working to get the power back on. >> trees and wires don't go together. >> for the most part absolutely correct. they don't go together at all. >> reporter: falling trees really one of the biggest killers in storms and could be the biggest killer in sandy. take a look at these. these are the roots of a tree here. we are now in alexandria, virginia. the problem is all the rain and all the wind. if you get several inches of rain, it softens the soil and then the wind just pushes these trees down. look how tree this root bulb
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waste and how deep it was but couldn't hold it. they're still concerned. central park was closed down. the mayor didn't want anybody in there in case trees fell there, as well. >> that is a big tree. thank you, david kerley and a couple of other pictures from the treacherous scrapbook sandy left behind, take a look. this is a street in long beach island, new jersey before and then after sandy and here watery grave for what is a symbol of new york city, the taxicab. and "20/20" anchor chris cuomo has been tracking the storm. he has been out all night in the city of 8 million people. subways paralyzed. tunnels and roads under water and shows what it is like to live in new york in the wake of this fierce storm. chris. >> reporter: diane, last night new york city was down but today proof it is not out. sandy broke a lot of storm records, to be sure we've never seen wind and water punish this
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place this way. but the men and women who live and work here are now out to set their own record, quickest comeback. sandy's tidal surge, the scourge of downtown manhattan, a record 14-foot plume pulverized seawalls, made tunnels and construction sites into lagoon, near hurricane force winds turbocharged it making streets nearly impassing plunging 700,000 in darkness but today new yorkers are trying to make light of living in the dark. even up high. john and his roomies showed us their 12-story trek home. >> reporter: this 12, right? >> 12, here we go. >> reporter: much greater challenges lay below ground in the subways. manhattan is like a beating heart. the subways, the blood vessels that keep it going and connected to the rest of the sprawling metropolis. every day they move 5.3 million people on 660 miles of track. they connect to four other commuter rails bringing another 1 million suburbanites into new
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york. sunday this underground world ground to a halt and so did life in this city. >> within about a two-hour period we started to see the surges coming over. >> reporter: holy cow. we went into the labyrinth of debris, water and damage that are the city's subways with mta official joe leader. what percentage of the railways that we need are underwater? >> we have 46 miles of track currently underwater right now. >> reporter: the biggest problem lies beyond the turnstiles. this is the real deal. these are the stairs going down into the subway. >> we are actually about two levels up right now. >> reporter: what are we talking about, 50, 60 feet? >> yes. >> reporter: they have to pump out the water and repair signals on 60 miles of track just to start and in joe's eye not concern, confidence. how many men? >> close to 1,500 people have been working. >> reporter: like a small army. >> yes, we'll just roll with it. we have to do it. it's part of our job. >> reporter: diane, joe says two
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two days until workers are back on the subway. here we are in the middle of the financial district, it's just a stone's throw away. bowling green usually has a flood of financiers and workers that drive our economy now clearly closed but also right now men are down there in the dark on their way to fixing the subway and this city, diane. >> and they show up and say we'll just roll with it as you showed us, chris. thank you so much and one more way in which the superstorm turned the city into a danger zone. that crane, you remember it, knocked over by wind but still attached to a skyscraper and dangling 1,000 feet above the street. 80 tons of steel held by braces until they can dismantle it and get it down, it is still there. and still ahead right here on "world news," newborn babies evacuated from a hospital as the storm rages overhead.
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new pictures from inside the scarewell. patients whisked to safety and our david muir is there. people really love snapshot from progressive, but don't just listen to me. listen to these happy progressive customers. i plugged in snapshot, and 30 days later, i was saving big on car insurance. with snapshot, i knew what i could save before i switched to progressive. the better i drive, the more i save. i wish our company had something this cool. you're not filming this, are you? aw! camera shy. snapshot from progressive. test-drive snapshot before you switch. visit progressive.com today. is the same frequent heartburn treatment as prilosec otc. now with a fancy coating that gives you a burst of wildberry flavor.
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as the power snapped out in new york city last night, a dramatic rescue took place at a hospital. the backup generators there also failed. tiny babies rushed out. oxygen pumped by hand. and our david muir was there overnight into the early morning hours. david? >> reporter: we're still here tonight, diane. nyu medical center is the hospital in question. i wanted to show you behind me if you look up you can see it's still pitch black after those generators failed less than 24 hours ago. it was at that moment the re respirators went down, and elevators. they turned to cpr bags to pump the air in themselves, toast tiny lungs to keep the babies alive. when we arrived all you could see was the outline of the hospital against the darkened sky. a lone flashlight up in one of the hospital rooms there as doctors and nurses rushed from patient to patient. out front ambulances and images
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from my iphone as we approached the hospital. 1 of nearly 300 patients one by one brought out and taken by safety. from the sky the ambulances lined up around the block from all over the city and we're learning more tonight about the moments the lights went out, the moment critical machines and respirators stopped. this young doctor right there. >> making sure the patient was on ventilators. >> reporter: the babies. >> the babies, yes. >> reporter: their first concern, babies in intensive care, 20 of them. this nurse holding one of those plastic bags and doing the work of the respirator her self-. all the nurses were doing what's called bagging the air, squeezing bags of air into those tinily lungs, cradling the babies and carrying them nine floors down. another baby rushed out dwarfed by the size of the gurney. once outside the bag replaced by oxygen brought in by the paramedic. an entire team surrounding one baby and a hospital source telling me that's what they did the moment was cut off dividing up into teams surrounding one
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patient at a time carefully bringing them down a darkened stairwell carrying them on plastic sleds rushed in by the paramedics. flashlights all they had to see their way. >> there were a bunch of people that would go with each patient, carry them down the stairs physic physically. >> reporter: they were pull eed out. at 10:00 a.m. in the morning you can see still see a line of ambulances all the way up the street. this operation has been going on for 12 hours now. you can see them lining up at the front entrance of the hospital here as they carefully bring the patients down. and late today, 15 hours after those evacuations began, they were done and the president and one of those heroic nurses and newborns. >> during the darkness i saw what's brightest in america. nurses at nyu hospital caring for fragile newborns to safety. >> reporter: we know that more than half dozen area hospitals took all of the patients from
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this one hospital alone, diane, and one more extraordinary note tonight, we learned that at least four of the women who left this hospital were in labor and at last check two of them have given birth, remarkable at this hour it appears that everyone taken from this hospital, diane, is okay tonight. >> that is really extraordinary. thank you, david muir and coming up here, the superstorm deals a fiery blow to the hometown of some of america's best firefighters. our team from abc news is right there in the blaze next. [ male announcer ] alka-seltzer plus presents the cold truth. i have a cold, and i took nyquil, but i'm still stubbed up. [ male announcer ] truth is, nyquil doesn't unstuff your nose. what? [ male announcer ] it doesn't have a decongestant. no way. [ male announcer ] sorry. alka-seltzer plus fights your worst cold symptoms plus has a fast-acting decongestant to relieve your stuffy nose. thanks. [ male announcer ] you're welcome.
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breezy point. as you can see electrical power lines are down everywhere. mike lost his entire home. >> nothing i could really identify except for the kitchen tile and the bathroom tile and that's about it. >> reporter: nobody knows how the fire started but once it did, it became an inferno fed by hurricane-force winds. firefighters were blocked by hurricane fueled floods. >> we couldn't get any apparatus down the flood so we had a boat with us and saddled up, got in the boat, went down there. >> reporter: we were there just last night as sandy was bearing down on this neighborhood. many here like mary were determined to stay behind and check in on her neighbor. >> let me take a chance. we left for irene and we felt we didn't really have to go. so that's why we stayed. >> a flashlight. >> i don't have one. >> reporter: but nightfall brought regret. the power is out. the water outside rising.
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>> it is 6:55 and the power just went out. so we're officially screwed. >> reporter: "20/20" producers are here with mary when they spot flames down the block lighting up the flooded streets. they flee to a rooftop they hope will be safe. >> there's water everywhere, and embers flying. >> it's like the apocalypse. i mean there's like that fire. we've evacuated. this is real. >> reporter: this is a community that has been hit hard before losing 32 people on 9/11. today, residents stoically faced their newest disaster, vowing they will come back again. elizabeth vargas, abc news, breezy point, queens. >> thank you so much, elizabeth, and elizabeth will have more tonight on our special edition of "20/20" the perfect storm at 10:00 p.m. eastern tonight. coming up right here our sam
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and now i want to bring in abc's senior weather editor sam champion who has been covering this superstorm from the beginning. he's covered hurricanes and storms for decades and you kept saying to us all last night, you've never seen anything like this before. >> never seen anything. the size of this storm, the fact that it was a giant nor'easter more than a thousand miles long with a hurricane embedded in it and that low, low, low pressure, lower than ever recorded in the atlantic meant there wasnough power in that storm to throw energy somewhere, diane. that was real troubling. >> and we saw all sorts of things happening on shore. we couldn't believe the winds of this storm had lifted. >> oh, the picture that you guys showed was the one that drove me to the tv set. it was that 168-foot tanker by the way on staten island. 712 tons, local reporter wabc
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reporter michelle charles brought us that picture moored a mile away. the 14-foot lift on that water took that thing and put it on a road in staten island on shore on top of a city street. >> moored a mile away and sam champion is here with us, as you know. he'll be with us throughout this evening, as always, thank you and for some of you watching we say good night. for others, stay with us for more of our one-hour broadcast, the latest on the perfect storm, more dramatic stories and videos coming up. see you soon. anncr: it's endorsed by business leaders... small business owner: question seven means thousands of jobs...
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